Pitt Sports Medicine graduate student Jamie Flynn (photo by Jonathan Guo)
The Olympic Games are considered the pinnacle of achievement for elite athletes, and the support teams that ensure they can perform at the highest level are also some of the best in the world. Like the athletes they care for, athletic trainers must put in their own hard-earned years of proficiency and intensity to give their athletes the competitive edge to excel and to win. Jamie Flynn, a graduate student in the University of Pittsburgh Sports Medicine program, has her eyes set on supporting athletes at the Olympic Games and is making the most of her experience at Pitt to reach that goal.
Flynn (far right) and the Pitt women’s ice hockey team celebrating a 4-3 overtime win against Brockport
Why Pitt Sports Medicine
Sports have been a part of Flynn’s life since she was tumbling on a gymnastic mat as a toddler. She grew up attending the famed Woodward gymnastics training camp near State College, PA, where her dreams were sown watching Olympian Shawn Johnson practice routines, fresh from her gold and silver medal winning performances at the 2008 Beijing games. Flynn competed at the University of Vermont where she earned a bachelor’s in athletic training and passed the board of certification (BOC) exam. She returned to Woodward as a gymnastics coach, counselor and athletic trainer devoted to helping fellow athletes. Her network there extended to the University of Pittsburgh, with many of her Woodward friends enrolling at Pitt and competing on the gymnastics team, which helped plant the seed of her next chapter.
To become a top professional athletic trainer, Flynn knew that she would require additional academic and clinical experience. She was drawn to the Pitt Sports Medicine program because she was looking for a graduate degree where she could continue to gain valuable hands-on clinical experience and learn more about evidence-based research. Pitt had all the right elements. She says, “Other graduate programs, such as kinesiology or exercise science, would have emphasized the different facets of biomechanics and orthopedics, or strength and conditioning, but miss the clinical application component that sets athletic trainers apart from other health care providers.” Additionally, being in Pittsburgh and at Pitt would place her front-and-center in a sports-driven environment that includes the university’s club and Division I sports teams, and the city’s professional teams and world renown support staff.
One of Flynn’s academic goals was to become more proficient in human anatomy, which must be second nature when quickly treating injured athletes. Her first semester started with the Anatomical Basis of Sports Medicine course, and it checked the box. “I remember walking into the lab expecting to review the syllabus and instead we jumped straight into cadaver dissections,” she remembers. “Being able to have hands-on learning experience allowed me to be more thorough in my explanations to patients, be more precise with palpations and have a more comprehensive understanding of anatomical structures that cannot be attained from textbooks. Another bonus of the class was having Wei-Neng Chuang, who is director of the SHRS Anatomy Laboratory, as our instructor. His unique ability to transcribe and relate the material made learning much more entertaining and engaging for us as students.”
Flynn assisting a Pitt Men's Lacrosse athlete off the field during a game against Tennessee (photo by Sara Degurian)
Experiential Opportunities Position
While there were a number of reasons for Pitt to be Flynn’s first choice, she says that the Sports Medicine program’s experiential opportunity positions were a real draw. Students selected for the positions receive tuition scholarships and are placed in part-time positions as athletic trainers, researchers, or community engagement fellows around the Pitt community. Flynn was eager to work as an athletic trainer while in school in order to obtain as much clinical experience as possible. “To be part of the Olympics sports medicine team--and just in general to even apply there--you need at least five years of experience.”
Flynn applied early for the Sports Medicine experiential position and was placed as the athletic trainer for the Pitt’s club sports—all 40 of them. As if to test her mettle, the first game she worked was men’s rugby. She recalls, “Everything under the sun that you could possibly imagine went wrong. The first game I felt like I was on the battlefield because there were players crawling to the sidelines, and I was constantly running on and off the field tending to athletes.” She met the challenge of treating the rugby players and not only helping them to get back into the game, but earning their trust and respect as they discovered the value that Flynn’s skills could add to their health and performance.
Her reputation as an invaluable athletic trainer spread as she forged relationships with student athletes and kept them in competitive form. Cross country runners credited her nurturing their shin splints and ankle sprains for their success in races, especially in preparation for the Pittsburgh Marathon. Lacrosse players looked to her on the sidelines and knew if they suffered an injury, they would be well taken care of. Pitt Athletics reached out if she could occasionally cover their ATs at varsity games. “They definitely appreciate everything I'm doing and they know that I'm here for them. A lot of the athletes that come to me for help are through recommendations, which is very valuable to me because it means that I'm doing my job.”
Flynn runs onto the field to assess a player from the Pitt Men’s Soccer team during their game against the Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (photo by Jonathan Guo)
Opportunities All Around
Flynn carefully manages her busy schedule that takes her from the classroom to the field throughout the week. She admits that she is making the most out of her time in graduate school, which also includes being a clinical preceptor and teaching assistant for prospective Pitt athletic training students. Pitt faculty and staff are a constant resource to opening new doors. “The thing about the program,” she says, “is there are opportunities all around. It's just a matter of who to talk to and who to ask.”
Flynn’s master’s thesis is part of her independent study as a research intern at the Neuromuscular Research Laboratory (NMRL), a position that Associate Professor Katelyn Allison suggested in one of their ongoing conversations about connecting Flynn’s interests with other Sports Medicine projects. At the NMRL, Flynn is using varsity gymnasts’ data from a larger study called BoBCAT (Bone and Body Composition Adaptations to Training), which measures the training intensities of varsity athletes to see how different training styles effect their body composition, bone mineral density, and eating pathology inventory symptoms (EPSI) scores from pre- and post- season.
Her time at the NMRL has presented other experiences that will help target her professional goals. Flynn says, “Over the summer I got the opportunity to work with prescreening VO2 max testing for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I was able to meet the Steelers, the new recruits and see where their training intensities are and how a professional athlete gets ready for their season.”
As for the future, Flynn will defend her thesis and graduate in spring 2023, but she is keeping an open mind with so many options in front of her. The potential to contribute to new research at the NMRL and continue in academics has piqued her interest in a PhD, as has continuing her profession at UPMC or Pitt Athletics. She leans on her academic advisor, Program Director Mary Murray, a former athletic trainer herself, and Allison for guidance, but is not ready to make any decisions just yet.
“I love academics. That was the one thing that my mom really emphasized with me and my sister while growing up--if anything, no one can take away your education and a good degree.”
Murray says that Flynn’s goal of the Olympics is “fantastic” and that she also always wanted to work at that level. “You’re working with elite athletes on the biggest stage, the world stage, and it’s definitely achievable for her because of her background and the experiences that she’s had.”
Pitt will certainly be waiting for Flynn, whether she returns for a PhD or to share her priceless experience and memories of making the Olympic Games dream come true for herself and her athletes.
---------------
Applications for the 2023-2024 Wellness Pavilion Community Engagement Fellow and Hillman Cancer Center Exercise Specialist experiential positions have been extended! Please contact Mary Murray for details on the positions and applying to the program before the April 15 deadline.
For more information about the program, please visit our website or talk to one of our enrollment specialists at enroll@shrs.pitt.edu!
Be sure to read parts one and two of our Sports Medicine series that include an introduction to the program with Program Director Mary Murray and graduate student Sasha Tolliver.
---
Published April 7, 2023